I don’t know if I was ever yours, but you used to be my best friend. You were the only person I could really be myself with, someone who understood parts of who I am when others could not because they were part of you too.

But now? You barely text me. If it weren’t for me, we probably wouldn’t talk at all. I know that when we’re both at university we don’t really talk. Yes, at the beginning of the summer you would text me to hang out quite a lot, and that made me so happy. I felt wanted, needed even. But now it feels like we’re drifting apart, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if that’s what you want. Is it?

It feels like we don’t have as much in common anymore. We can’t complain about our subjects together anymore, or the stress we’re under, or all the work we have to do. We can’t talk about TV shows that aren’t on air anymore, or teachers that we no longer have. We can’t debate things we learn about because we learn different things. So what do we have? What do you want to talk about?

Friends fall out of touch, I know they do. That’s life. But I don’t want to be alone. You have all your other friends, your huge group chat, all your uni friends who you are so happy with, and I have nothing, and no one. Just my misery for company aside from you. I have a few people, here and there, yes. But we could be so great together, like best friends again. But I can’t see how you could want that too if you don’t ever talk to me.

So I just have to ask you this. Do you still want to be friends? Do I mean anything to you? Because at this point, I’m just not sure.

I never had any doubt that Heather and I were best friends. We met in pre-school, and became friends quickly and stayed that way throughout primary school; I don’t even remember not being best friends. As far as I can remember, she was just always there. It’s as if she always was.

I had other friends, of course, but there was never any challenge to her. We were so similar; weird in the same way, quiet in the same way, but also loud in the same way. I couldn’t imagine life without her. We were also close with another girl who we met later, Myrtle. She was my second best friend, if you like. Between them, I had all the friendship I needed. I didn’t really pay that much attention to other people because I didn’t need them. I had Heather and Myrtle.

When we moved up to secondary school, we stayed close, particularly Heather and I. It was the same as primary school; I made other friends, I talked to other people in class, but she was by far my closest friend, followed again by Myrtle. Almost 2,000 people in the school, but I needed no one else. We were best friends forever.

And then, suddenly, I didn’t have her.

I remember when I was told. It was April in Year 7, I was having a bath, my mum knocked on the bathroom door and came in. She told me that Heather’s family had managed to sell their house. I’d known that they were trying, but with the housing market as bad as it was I’d just never really believed that they would actually manage it.

And so… she moved away. 400 miles away, to Scotland.

It would have crushed me to lose her at school. But at least I had Myrtle, right? … until she also moved away, to Greece. A month after Heather left.

And then I was alone.

Thus, I started Year 8 with no real friends, no one I felt close to, or comfortable with. I’d given my heart entirely to my closest friends, because I had only needed them. And in their wake they left nothing.

Everyone else had spent Year 7 forming extensive, close and seemingly exclusive friendship groups, and after a year of barely talking to them I didn’t feel welcome. So, for the first year or so, I largely spent my break and lunch alone, trying to avoid older students who might try to make fun of me for being a loner. When I saw people I knew, I wanted so badly to join them, eat with them, laugh with them… but they all knew each other and I didn’t really know them. I didn’t know what they liked, or what made them laugh, or what to say at all… what could I offer them? I felt that if I joined them, I would be an outsider, a nuisance. They were happy without me, I thought, I didn’t have anything to offer them. They didn’t want me. I would just be annoying to them.

It took me a long time to become fully incorporated in a new group of friends. But even so, that feeling never went away. No matter who it was, I always felt that whenever I opened my mouth, they would think I was annoying, an irritation, someone they wished wasn’t there. It began to extend not just to friends, but to teachers, shop assistants, family members. Everyone.

And so I learned to not speak at all. Pretend like I didn’t exist, because I thought that that’s what other people wanted. Any personality I had had with Heather and Myrtle was buried deep beneath an exterior of shyness so that I would not be noticed. And so, I became shy.

After a few years, my shy exterior eventually began to crack. I became loud, argumentative (in a good way) in English classes. I debated with my new best friend in such a loud voice that it’s hard to believe that no one noticed. I had extensive conversations with my history teachers, giving them intellectual thought beyond school work that I knew they could appreciate.

Slowly, slowly, I came back out of my shell. But those insecurities still crippled me, forbade me from making many friends when I came to university. They kept me lonely, dependent on just a few people who I trusted. They kept me weak.

I am more confident than I ever was. Admittedly, it would still be a stretch to say that I love myself – I still have a long way to come – but I no longer see myself as an irritation to others. I don’t worry that people find me annoying, that people don’t want me. Because I’ve realised two key things.

1. I am amazing and unique

Yes, I’m aware of how arrogant (and cliché) that sounds, but realistically, when it comes to self-love or even self-acceptance, a bit of arrogance is okay for everyone. And it’s not just me; everyone is amazing in their own way. Everyone has those things which make them sparkle, and their character shine through no matter how tough their outer shells are.

For a long time, I compared myself to other people. I looked around me and saw other people, with dozens of friends, interesting hobbies, gossip to share, knowledge of politics and the world to discuss. And then I looked at myself. I had few friends, few hobbies, and very little interest in detailed discussion of current affairs. So… what did I have to show for my worth? I didn’t have what other people had, so I assumed I had nothing… that I was nothing.

But recent events mean that I can now see that that’s not true, and these things make me someone who I should be proud of:

I love with all my heart. I would never abandon any of my friends if they needed me, no matter what. If you open your heart to me, I will feel your pain like my own and drop what I’m doing to hug you and cry with you if you want me to.

I would do anything I can to help you and make you happy. If you have a slight problem, I would do anything I could to fix it or scour the entire internet to find a solution, whether you ask me to or not. All I want is for my friends to be happy.

I forgive. I don’t hold grudges; anger doesn’t come naturally to me. If you did something bad to me, if you wanted me to forgive you, I would. I’m not petty. Why make us both unhappy? I just want us to be friends.

I don’t forget those I love. If I loved you once, I will love you forever. Even if we fall out of touch, if after years you come back to me and you need me, I would be there for you as though we’d talked every day, because I still love you. I don’t forget.

I’m a poet. Yeah, my poetry might not be all that great, but not many people have the courage to express their darkest secrets in verse and share it with the world.

I can get passionate about anything. A character in a book, a moment in history, a particular figure, if you wanted a debate I would debate with you about anything and get very passionate about it. (Oh, and I’d win, of course.)

I trust. If you prove to me that you’re worth it, I would let you in entirely. I would tell you everything, so that you could know me completely. I wouldn’t hide anything from you or lie to you, because you are important to me and I value you. Don’t misuse my trust.

I would never let you down. Enough said.

This may not seem like much to you, but for the past year I looked inside myself and found nothing. I found nothing about myself that was worth sharing, nothing that made me worthy of having friends, of having people who cared about me. But the last few weeks, I have been finding myself again, and this is what I have found. I know that there’s a lot more to find, though, and as cliché as it may sound I’m looking forward to future challenges which reveal to me and to the world who I really am.

2. If anyone treats me less than I deserve, they don’t deserve me

I hope that you’ve come to see now that the thing that I am most proud of when I look inside myself is my kind heart. I am not horrible. I’m not perfect, no, but no one is. Occasionally I get overwhelmed and I might say something I don’t mean. I will apologise profusely, do anything I can to make it right, and hope that you will forgive me. But if you can’t forgive me for an accident, you clearly don’t value me the way that I value you. If one moment of recklessness outweighs everything you liked about me, I clearly didn’t mean enough to you.

If you don’t value me, then you deserve my unreserved love.

As much as I want to, I can’t give my love out for free, because I will only get pain in return.

So, when you look inside yourself, what do you see that you love the most?

I don’t forgive you but I still love you,
It’s only that love that I want to give you,
I won’t hurt you, or abandon you,
I’ll always be there for you,
Do anything for you.
It seems you just don’t want me to.
I have scars on my soul because of you.
You hurt me so much but what hurts me still
Is that you won’t let me talk to you.
I have so much love in my heart to give you,
To give everyone.
But no one wants me to.
I would do anything for any of you,
If you were sad I would cry with you.
I’d feel your pain as though it were my own,
And I would hold you in my arms as long as you wanted me to.
Why won’t you let me?

I don’t have room for hate in my heart,
I try but despite everything I just can’t hate you.
Some part of me does, that’s true.
But the moment you say you’re ready
I will throw that part away all for you,
But you never will, will you?

In my lowest days, I feel so incredibly alone and unwanted. Something in me tells me that I mean nothing to the world, that I have no worth, that I might as well have never existed because I’m just not enough of anything to have any impact on anyone’s life.

I feel useless because I can’t make proper conversation because I get too nervous. But also because I have nothing to say that anyone would be interested to hear.

No wonder the only man who’s ever paid any attention to me, the only person I’ve ever cared about in that way, the only person who’s ever liked me enough to make me their girlfriend, dumped me after only a few months. I don’t blame him. I’m boring as fuck. What could I really give him other than my body? Nothing. I have nothing. I am nothing.

I have so few people who really care about me. I feel so alone. If I was falling, who would run across the country, across the town, even, to catch me? No one. I have no one. I’m so alone. No one loves me because I am nothing. You can’t love nothing.

I am so jealous of people who have a group of friends. True I have a few friends, scattered about, but for a long time I’ve wanted something more. I’ve wanted a group of people who hang out together all the time, who have a group chat, who message each other constantly, who all love each other.

But I’ll never have that. Never. Who would want me?

When he broke up with me, when he told me that he didn’t want me anymore, he said that we never talked about anything meaningful. That I couldn’t talk about the things he wanted to talk about.

I know that he wasn’t deliberately trying to hurt me, he was just being honest about how he felt. Like I am now. But even though I don’t want him anymore either, and I really shouldn’t care what he thinks of me, I just can’t shake what he said to me that night, because it’s true. I couldn’t talk to him about the things he wanted to talk about. I can’t talk to anyone about anything. Polite small talk is fine, but beyond that…? What do I have that I can say? I have barely any interests or hobbies to talk about. Nothing interests me anymore. I’m empty.

I don’t live; I exist. All I’m doing with my life is whiling away the hours until one day I’ll die, alone, having achieved nothing. My family will go to my funeral out of obligation, bound to me by blood that they couldn’t change if they tried. There’ll be few friends. Maybe there’ll be some tears. But what is there about me really to miss?

I was feeling lonely this morning,
With no one for company.
So I sent some texts out to my friends
To stop me feeling lonely.

My lips turn up in a hopeful smile
As I go to find my phone.
Surely they’ve replied by now!
But nope… I’m still alone.
No notifications.

It’s been an hour! All three are busy?
But I have love to give!
Why are they all busy now
When… Oh. They’ve all been active.

They must have seen my messages;
I’m just not worth a reply.
It takes five seconds to type out to me
Sorry, I’m busy, but hi!

Or maybe they’re not busy.
Maybe they just don’t like me.
I’m boring, a chore, a task they’ll put off.
But they don’t know what’s in my head
When I’m so lonely.

No notifications.
Might as well say no friends.
You’re not worthy of being happy.
Not good enough.
Not for those on whom you depend.
They don’t need you.

No notifications.
When I do it’s a rarity.
No one wants to talk to me
Like I have no personality.
Like if they just gave me a chance
I couldn’t make them happy.
I might make them laugh,
Or be there when they cry.
I would love them endlessly
If only they gave me the opportunity.
All it takes is a simple text,
And I’ll be there for you.
My heart is easily given.
All it takes is a simple text
And I’ll never neglect you.

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Welcome to My Blog!

I’m an 18-year-old introvert from the UK. I blog about the issues I face in everyday life with my introvertism, self-esteem, relationships, etc. – issues which are relatable to most teenage girls. I also love to write poetry!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog. I hope you enjoy reading and gain something from hearing about my experiences.